My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot

[Paul H]

My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I cleaned
up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
% - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul

 

[R. McCarty]

Slowness can be a number of things. Malware running is one thing to
check/clean up. Recent software or driver updates may account for a
noticeable slowdown. Another possibility is a Windows volume that is
"Dirty" or in an inconsistent state ( resolve with Chkdsk ).

AdAware is a product I no longer put much faith in. I would suggest
Malwarebytes as your resident Malware protection. Also you might
want to run SuperAntiSpyware's online scan.

You can review Startup & Watchdog apps with SysInternal's program
"AutoRuns".

One thing that should always be checked is the System & Application
event logs. Any Warnings or Errors should be resolved. No system is
going to run properly when it logs Warnings & Errors. You can access
the Event logs with EventVwr.Msc [Enter] from the Run prompt.

Performance of XP is always a trade off between how many programs
you have installed. Some combinations of certain versions can introduce
slowness or instability. So it's always best to be sure all your apps are
fully updated. ( Sun Java - Adobe Shockwave/Flash, if you use them ...)

"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I
> cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul
>

 

[Saucy]

We got my aunt of one those. I got very slow very quickly. She had installed
a Google toolbar which also installed a bunch of Google junk in startup, she
installed this unless program and that useless program. With those netbooks
it doesn't take much before its overwelmed. Best thing it to run it as
stripped of 3rd party stuff as you can. No extra toolbars, as little as
possible at startup and so on.



"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I
> cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul
>

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:29:48 -0600, "Paul H"
<NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote:

> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul


There's more than one possibility, but the most likely thing these
days is malware infection. I recommend that your first step is to run
these two programs (download the free versions of both):

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
SuperAntiSpyware.

If those don't fix the problem, next look at what you have starting
automatically when you boot. First, note that you should be concerned
with *all* programs that start automatically, not just with those that
go into the system tray. Not all autostarting programs manifest
themselves by an icon in the tray.

On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its
Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you
actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon"
option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't
work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab,
uncheck the programs you don't want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of
running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell
you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs
you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but
others have no effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do
is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what
the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can try
internet searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

 

[db]

you can test windows
performance via safe
mode.

--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- Microsoft Partner
- @hotmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~"share the nirvana" - dbZen

>
>

"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul
>

 

[thecreator]

Hi Paul,

Have you checked how much free space is available on the operating
system's partition? Have you manually cleaned the \Temp Folders or just run
Disk Cleanup?


--
thecreator





"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I
> cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul
>

 

[Paul H]

"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I cleaned
up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
% - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul

My Netbook has 2 gb memory and 160 gb disk. I run the latest version of
AdAware frequently, and if I've "surfed the Web" recently, it will find and
deal with a couple dozen problems. PC World, PC Mag, and Cnet still give
AdAware top rating - I trust only them - anything else may be a shill.
Windows, Java, etc. are all current. I don't know how to decide what
programs can't run together. msconfig shows about 40 programs.

 

[shawn]

You should also verify the fan is running as well. That could cause
overheating.

Someone else suggested seeing how much hard drive space is left. Some say if
you're running Windows you should leave 10% free or your system really slows
down. I've found that true. I usually notice a big slowdown if I get too low
on space.

We bought an Acer Revo for my Girlfriend's Daughter. It is probably similar
to what you have except this is a nettop (ie: tiny desktop computer). Ours
is Windows XP Home, 1GB memory, 160GB hard drive, and probably the same
processor as you the 1.6Ghz Atom.

It came installed with a bunch of un-needed crap, which I took off. The
first thing I did was visit the Control Panel's Add/Remove programs and took
off things I didn't need.. WinLocker I had no clue what it even does..
gone.. McAfee sucks.. gone.

I run Avast! Free, Spybot Search & Destroy, and one or two other programs in
the background and things are okay. Sure, it's slow because the system
itself isn't that great, but it's no slower than when I first got it.. it's
good enough for her to do homework, surf the web, etc.

"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
news:uBQGKMBrKHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
> "Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
> newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I
> cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul
>
> My Netbook has 2 gb memory and 160 gb disk. I run the latest version of
> AdAware frequently, and if I've "surfed the Web" recently, it will find
> and
> deal with a couple dozen problems. PC World, PC Mag, and Cnet still give
> AdAware top rating - I trust only them - anything else may be a shill.
> Windows, Java, etc. are all current. I don't know how to decide what
> programs can't run together. msconfig shows about 40 programs.
>
>

 

[shawn]

Oops.. I hit send. I also meant to say you can try running TrendMicro's
Hijack The thing with that is, you probably won't know what's safe to remove
or not, so there are forums where you can post your results and they can
guide you what to remove.

"Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
news:uBQGKMBrKHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
> "Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoSpam@att.net> wrote in message
> newsKl8I2wqKHA.4752@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My Acer Netbook XP Pro has slowed a lot since I started using it. I
> cleaned
> up the files, then did a defrag. Since the disk is hardly used - maybe 15
> % - it finished quickly with excellent results. I wonder if my Avast and
> some memory resident piece of AdAware are fighting? Or some other CPU
> stealing process is at work? How an I tell? TIA, Paul
>
> My Netbook has 2 gb memory and 160 gb disk. I run the latest version of
> AdAware frequently, and if I've "surfed the Web" recently, it will find
> and
> deal with a couple dozen problems. PC World, PC Mag, and Cnet still give
> AdAware top rating - I trust only them - anything else may be a shill.
> Windows, Java, etc. are all current. I don't know how to decide what
> programs can't run together. msconfig shows about 40 programs.
>
>